Fortune Cookies – Personal Kitchen Challenge #16

After making the eggnog over Christmas*, I had a ton of egg whites left over. I looked into recipes to use up those egg whites – Angel Food Cake, of course, but why not try making Fortune Cookies?

Homemade fortune cookies

The recipe was basic enough – egg whites, sugar, flour, salt, cream. I had a brief scare at the grocery store when I realized I hadn’t written down the Finnish word for Almond Extract. However, pulling on my past experience with making macaroons and buying almond meal, I simply found the almond meal again in the store, figured out the word for almond on the packaging, then looked for that word in the extract area. See, I’m smart! 😉

I followed this recipe from Martha Stewart, but also took a little something from this youtube video by yoyomax12. The video host recommends doing 2 cookies at a time, because they cool fast enough that folding them will become difficult. She also suggested using a mug to shape the cookies, and placing them in a muffin tin to cool completely. Genius.

First off, the batter, while freaking delicious (I considered eating the whole bowl of batter without cooking it, and I would have accepted any ill effects because it was that good) was thicker than I expected. The cookies in the first batch came out way too big. Not the size of my palm, like it should have been, but bigger than my whole hand.

I adjusted. I had to spread out the batter with my fingertips to get them thin enough on the baking sheet, which means lots of finger licking! 🙂 And lots of hand washing. 😦 My hands are already so dry, I actually have to put vasoline on them, so more handwashing is not recommended…

Anyway, after the first couple of batches, I got the hang of it, and got into a routine. Timer buzzes, remove baking sheet, put second baking sheet in oven, reset timer, peel cookies off cookie sheet, flip (I figured this helped cool them enough to touch), insert fortune and shape cookies, refill cookie sheet. The cookies take 6 minutes to bake – the first 3 minutes was the routine above, then I would sit down and surf the internet for the remaining time.

I was getting good enough that I decided to try 3 cookies at a time. It worked! I had gotten good enough to fold three at a time! But I wasn’t going to try 4. Besides, the cookie sheets were starting to get all burny (very technical term) after cycling in the oven so often with baking spray and crumbs. So I made one more BIG one for a friend celebrating a birthday, and then made cupcakes with the rest of the batter (which turned out pretty well, actually). Plus, I was out of fortunes…

I took the fortune cookies to a party, and one of the Americans saw them, pointed, and said, “Are these imported?” Nope, I made them. Yay me!

*Please don’t think I’ve had frozen egg whites in the freezer for seven months. I actually made these fortune cookies many months ago…I just haven’t posted it until now!

I’m intentionally challenging myself in the kitchen, working with new ingredients, attempting more challenging dishes, and doing it all while grocery shopping in a foreign language. Read more about my Personal Kitchen Challenge here.